He was quoted from the book signing as saying something along the lines of been aware of the pressure on him but thats great cos he hasnt come here to mess about, he wants to win trophies.

He looked proud to be black and white sat up there and commented about FC being a big club etc. He couldnt stop smiling.

i cant wait to see our big signings play against rovers if they are fit to that is

Long said he cant wait to run our in the pre-season derby at the KC. That says to me that we will aim to play most of our big guns in that game.

i hope so they really need a good run out

and hopefully will play in the sheffield one aswell the more match fit they are the better

Its a fine balance isnt it. We usually pick up an injury or two pre season so can understand if we wanted to use the first couple of league games as warm ups too. Wouldnt see us wanting to play 5 money spinning pre-season games though thats for sure.

Quite

It's about this time of year that I mention playing meaningful friendlies, where the first team get a full run out and we start the season match fit and ready to roll.

I'm not unhappy for some of the kids to get a game but don't make me walk all the way to Bramall Lane to watch an under 20 game.

think some of the 20s will play but if agar is right about the season starting early we really need them all match fit and ready

Wasnt his point that the season will start early feb unless we get Leeds when they need to re-schedule for the wcc game, meaning we could start a week earlier?

Correct.Four teams will start the season on the 30th January.
Saints away for us i reckon

i thought he said january



i wouldnt mind having leeds first game would be a good test to see if we are as good as we look tbh

Four teams?

I'm pretty sure he said that there will be 2 games to start the season on the last weekend in january.

Didnt hear that. Usually its only 1 isnt it.

leeds v?
Quins v?

I think Quins are playing the storm in a warm up game again.

Ah ok. So only 1 official game early though, the other is a friendly. The friendly was 2 weeks before the season started though wasnt it so both games couldnt be on 1 week before the season starts. (the storm cant play a friendly and a wcc on the same day)

Yeah it's normally only one Dave but im sure it's 2 games at the start of next season.
When are the fixtures released?

End of Nov i think?

Season starts proper on the 5th of February with 2 fixtures brought forward to the weekend of 29th January.

Didn't Wigan play a week early this season as well for some reason?

quins at home

Wigan played Wakey before before the season started, think it was round 17 game due to JJB oops the DW stadium been unavailable in June for re turfing.

Ah yeah that was it, thanks for that.

Not sure why 4 teams would need to play early this year though?

Maybe Dave Whelan is making it an annual thing? I am sure the pitch was unplayable for around 4 weeks? Could be wrong though.

Wonder how many multi-team stadiums may cotton onto this as an easy way to get a week off towards the end of the season? Im not suggesting for one minute a stadium may not need re-turfing but im sure some clubs could choose it to cheat.

The charcter of Sean Long can have the same effect that Knocker,Toppo brought back in the 80's

This move will certaintly fire Long up again im sure, and he is going to have a massive influence on the way we play imo

Liked his comments that he wanted some big humans to play behind



But in the pivotal postion we now have

1 Tansey(Good Footballer,support player)
6 Horne(More freedom can concentrate on his own game,support player)
7 Longy(organise everything,good kicking game a will to win)
9 Berry

(Still haven't seen the best of Berro with this pack around him we will see that along with playing in his favoured postion )

Throw in an great pack and competion for places in every postion hopefully this will spur everyone on